


Back to Baker Street

by BehindBrokenWindows



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Baker Street, Aftermath, Alcohol, Angst, John Watson Returns to Baker Street, M/M, Platonic Life Partners, Two Fathers, s4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 12:18:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10696875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BehindBrokenWindows/pseuds/BehindBrokenWindows
Summary: When Baker Street is finally cleaned up and John and Sherlock has time to sit together in silence for the first time since John moved back in, a conversation has to be had.John is no father, but Sherlock might be able to help.





	Back to Baker Street

Doctor John H. Watson sank into his usual armchair in 221B Baker Street and sighed heavily. Rosie was finally asleep; the house was almost alarmingly quiet. He sipped the cognac, letting his fingers curl almost protectively around the glass. He hadn't had time to sit down and relax for several weeks. Only two hours ago, the flat had been teeming with people, coming over to see if he was all right, and Sherlock, of course. Most importantly, Sherlock.

There was something he needed to ask him. Something important.

John could hear him coming up the stairs this very moment. He'd vacated the flat just a few minutes after the last visitors without a word. John was worried what he might do; the detective had looked so distressed, all since it happened. With good reason, though.

His steps were slow, silent as to not wake the little girl.

"Are you sure you should drink now, John? With Rosie in the next room?" The deep voice enhanced the silence, instead of breaking it. Sometimes it felt like John could curl into it and fall asleep inside it.

Sherlock shrugged out of his jacket and sank down in a chair of his own as smoothly as he ever did. But his hands were shaking. He'd shaved that morning, and John was glad. It was a step, though just a small one, towards normal. He knew they'd never get there now, but had there ever been hope, even from the start? No, not for them.

"Just a week. I just need one week, Sherlock. I'll have one glass after Rosie's fallen asleep, and that'll be it, I promise." Silence stretched and the two men looked around the room that had seen so much since they first moved in. It felt weird, now, being back in Baker Street, but it had been the most natural thing in the world to leave the place he shared with Mary. He couldn't stay there.

"Of course. You need to have a break, I understand. It's been rather a lot, these last months." John drank. Too much – way too much had passed. They had just done the finishing touch on their flat this very day, and almost all evidence of the broken shell it had looked like was gone. It looked like it always did, but somehow, something was off. Like you noticed different things out of the corner of your eye that you could never quite put your finger on. Maybe it was something in the air. Maybe it was the knowledge of what had happened and the questions of what was to come.

"I'm sorry, Sherlock, for – making you do this. I know you need time too, but I just – I can't-" His voice broke and he drew in a sharp, shaky breath.

"I know, John." More cognac. "And you're not making me do anything. You should know by now that nobody can make a Holmes do anything – except another Holmes." Sherlock tried a smile, but it was tight and looked rather uncomfortable. He stopped it right away.

"I just feel like she should be-"

"John. I am sorry for saying this, but you are in no state to take care of that child. Not yet."

"In a week," John promised as he looked into Sherlock's eyes. "I just need one week, and I'll be ready to be her father."

"And until then, I'll take care of her. Until then, she'll sleep in my room and I'll get up at all hours of the night to take care of her." Silence again. Heavy. John had something important to ask, but wasn't sure how to phrase it. There were several options. He could camouflage his nervousness and use a witty formulation, or he could simply explain what he meant, or he could state the facts as they were and hope the detective had brains enough to figure out what he meant.

"Sherlock..." he started, and quickly realised that he was about to go with the witty formulation, immediately regretting his decision but unable to change it. It was all coming out. "Would you like to be the father of my child?" Quickly, he took a sip of cognac and almost drowned in his glass at the horrified look on Sherlock's face. He got the strong drink up his nose and almost doubled over, gasping for air. Very smooth.

Their eyes met, and suddenly all the tension that had John hunch up his shoulders for weeks, left him. Together they let their laughter fill the room and for a moment everything was like it had always been. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, laughing together in Baker Street. John reasoned he'd have to blog about this.

Then Sherlock sobered, and hushed at John, pointing in the direction of his room where Rosie lay.

"Sherlock," John said as a memory half-forgotten resurfaced in his mind. "We can't giggle at a crime scene." Their very first day together. Sherlock remembered, and his smile was radiant as he looked over at the ridiculous blond across from him.

"I'm sorry, John, but the number of biological difficulties we are going to have if I were to be the father of your child are numerous. I must admit I'm not quite sure what you mean." John should have expected as much. Considering Sherlock's surprise when John simply asked him to be his best man.

"I'm asking you to share the responsibility of Rosie with me." He was afraid the detective's brilliant mind had shortcut again. "I really am in no state to be a father, and honestly I never thought I would be. I don't think I can do it on my own, I really don't. I'm not cut for this, I'm not a good father, and especially at present it is problematic."

"But... how? For just this period? I-"

"It's a legal document that needs a few signatures and believe me, once you sign it you'll never get out of it unless you get back on the drugs or hit her or..." Sherlock waved away John's words and stared into the empty air.

"What about you?"

"What about me?"

"Are you going to stay here? I thought after some time..."

"I'm done, Sherlock. I'm done looking for something I'm not going to find, because the reason I know I won't find it is because honestly, I don't want it. I'll stay here with you, and Rosie, until you decide you're bored of us. I'll stop... dating. It doesn't work, haven't worked. It was different with Mary. After her, and now that I have Rosie... I honestly don't want to get back to that. I'll be Rosie's father now, and that's what I'll do. And I'll work at the clinic and I'll solve crimes until I can't tell the difference between up and down because of lack of sleep." And when I need to, he thought in his mind, I'll go to a bar, stay the night with somebody, and never see them again. His palms were sweating, now. He didn't doubt that Sherlock wanted him here, in Baker Street. But had proposing he became a legal responsible of Rosie been too much? "You don't have to, of course. It is in no way necessary, I just thought-"

"Of course, John. Of course I will, if you let me." His voice was breathless, surprised, but also thankful. Like he got something he hadn't know he wanted, and found out that he wanted it very much.

"We'll figure out how to do it tomorrow." It was settled, then. John hadn't hesitated when the idea came into his mind. Rosie would never have a mother, but as long as John had a say in it, he would stay in Baker Street. It had come to be as much of a home as anything had ever been to John, so it only made sense that the person they lived with - that he would raise his daughter with - had the same rights to her as he did. And he knew that Mary would be happy. She'd always said that Sherlock was much more prepared than any of them for the arrival of a baby.

He finished the cognac and slid further into the armchair, grabbed the Union Jack pillow, and clutched it over his stomach.

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely." Sherlock didn't say anything, but John could tell that the man was moved.

"People will talk," he commented, another memory. A memory from good times, before things had really started slipping out of their control.

"People do little else," John replied. "Let them talk. It doesn't change anything. It is of no consequence." John was done with trying to do as people expected of him. He was done with caring what people thought of him and of them. So what if people thought they were shagging? It wasn't their business what he and Sherlock did behind closed curtains, and whatever they thought, had nothing to do with the reality of things. They didn't know John and Sherlock, only John and Sherlock did. And Mrs Hudson, he had to admit. And soon Rosie.

"John?" Sherlock's voice was hesitant. "I realise that this might be a touchy subject, but I don't know who else to ask. How did you... deal... with my 'death'?" It was a question he'd rather not answer.

"Why are you asking?"

"Victor Trevor. I just lost him. Again. It feels like that." He would need to answer, then.

"I drank. A lot. Can't remember much of the first weeks except sitting around in Baker Street. The I moved out. Can't remember much of that either, to be honest. I'd suggest that you don't do that, it's a very bad idea." There was that sorrowful look on Sherlock's face again, the one that was so full of regret and self-hatred that it made John's chest ache to see it. "You just go on, Sherlock, and every day it gets a little easier to get up in the morning. It doesn't feel like it. It's hell for weeks, months even. But you grieve, and day by day it gets more tolerable until you can function properly again, and you might be scarred, but you go on, and it is what it is."

"How long-" John laughed then.

"I don't know. You came back before it was over." And he could see that Sherlock, maybe for the first time, really understood what he'd put John through, on that rooftop and every day after. And yet, he found no blame in John's eyes, no anger. It had all subsided long ago. "You'll have to figure out for yourself. But in the meantime, I'll be here, and Rosie, and we'll take up as much of your time as we possibly can, and before you know it you'll be as good as you'll ever be."

"I love you." Their eyes met yet again, under the roof in Baker Street, like they had done so many times over the last years.

"I love you too." John got up and threw the pillow back in his chair. "Good night, Sherlock. Take good care of Rose tonight."

"Always, John." John held their eye contact now, letting Sherlock see into what Platon first called the doors of the soul. Then he straightened, and went to his bedroom upstairs.

**Author's Note:**

> Months, and still I don't know what I think about season four...
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! This was the first fanfic I wrote so I was 'careful' with it, basically that why nothing really happens... anyway I could totally picture this happening after the finale so yeah, I just got an idea and thought I should write it down :)
> 
> Please tell me what you think :) And more one-shots are coming soon!


End file.
